II
A fortnight later, with a full Chinese crew and Harman at the helm, the Heart shook out her old sails, and, picking her anchor out of the mud, lay over on a tack that would take her midway between Alcatras and Bird Rock. It was a bright and lovely morning, with a west wind blowing, and Harman whistled softly to himself as he shifted the helm under Alcatras and the slatting sails filled on the tack for Black Point. She was catching the full breath of the sea here and heeled with the green water a foot from the starboard gunwale as she made the reach for Lime Point, then on the port tack she felt the first Pacific sea, taking the middle channel.
After fighting the tumble of the thirty-six-foot water of the bar, Harman, having set their course, relinquished the wheel to one of the Chinamen and joined Blood.
In buying the trade, they had received some tips from Rafferty. “Now,” said that gentleman, “there’s no use in takin’ hats to Paris or coals to Newcastle. If you’re going to trade with a place, you must take the things that’s wanted there. I was sayin’ you could get all the copra you wanted for baccy pipes and beads—that was only me figure of speech. Them chaps on Matao—the name of the island—want stuff different from that, I took note when I was there, thinkin’ to trade some time with them. They’re no end keen on diggin’ the land and growin’ things, and they traded me a lot of fish and shells for a packet of onion seed. They want stuff that’s not grown there natural—onions, potatoes, and garden seed in general. You might take some spades and wheelbarras and not be amiss; and tinware, pots, and pans, and so on.”
Harman took this useful tip, and the Heart was well provisioned with things useful in the way of agriculture. He was talking now with Blood on the stowage; the wheelbarrows were exercising his mind, for there is nothing more awkward to stow, or, in its way, more likely to be damaged, and they had seven of them. It was a feature of Harman’s make-up that he sometimes didn’t begin to bother about things till it was impossible to put them right, and Blood hinted so in plain language.
“What’s the good of talkin’ about it now?” said he. “We worked the thing out ashore, and what’s done is done. You got them cheap, and if the Kanakas don’t take to them they’ll always fetch their price in any port.”
“That’s what’s bothering me,” said Harman; “for if the Kanakas don’t want them and we fill up with copra, we’ll have to dump the durned things, for we won’t have stowage room for them.”
“Wait till we’ve got the copra,” replied Blood.
Then they stood watching the Californian coast getting low down on the port quarter and a big tank steamer pounding along half a mile away making to enter the gates.
“Wheelbarrows or no wheelbarrows, you may thank your God you’re not second mate on that,” said Blood.
Harman concurred.